Establishment-Made Heroes, Blind Seekers of Saviors & Suckers

We all know of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: The five stage model divided into basic (or deficiency) needs (e.g. physiological, safety, love, and esteem) and growth needs (self-actualization). I am not pompous enough to call myself a psychologist, even though one of my bachelor degrees was in the field of psychology. Instead, I am going to make a mere suggestion to be added to this famous list: The majority’s need for heroes and great saviors.

I can list hundreds of historical examples depicting the hero-seeking aspect of the human psyche: From mythical heroes to folk heroes and today’s action heroes. But I won’t. Instead I want to specifically focus on the peculiar hero and savior seeking tendencies within the realm of political activism. It is extremely important, because it involves not only the general public, but also the establishment that utilizes and exploits this tendency.

Remember how our savior-seeking crowd cheered and chanted for Al Gore in 2006. Do you remember his very famous detailed and impassioned speech sponsored by liberal and conservative groups? Gore said that although much remained unknown about the spying program, "what we do know ... virtually compels the conclusion that the president of the United States has been breaking the law, repeatedly and insistently." Oh, but he said even more: "…Article II of the impeachment charges against President Nixon was warrantless wiretapping, which the president said was 'necessary' for national security." It can be an impeachable offense, Gore added.

Let’s watch him in action instead of just quoting him. Please pay attention to the passion and conviction expressed, and think of those who bought it (one of them, me):

Oh, how we cheered and clapped. Some even declared him the hero and the great savior who had finally arrived. Do you remember? So where is he now? Where has he been since the new Democratic Party King was elected and expanded the previous king’s illegalities and criminalities? Where is that great savior? What has he been saying and doing in the face of our new king’s quadrupled unconstitutionalities? Please raise your hand if you have seen or heard him since we elected his king versus their king.

No, he is not dead. No, he is not in a jail or exile. He decided to live happily and comfortably after. And he is several hundred million dollars richer than when he was delivering those heroic speeches.

Then there was the great savior of the media: Mr. Keith Olberman. Do you remember him? The man who we cheered and clapped for as the heroic journalist and commentator who dared to challenge the Republican establishment, and did so on one of the establishment’s own media channels! Oh, how the new hero brought back the nostalgic days of Murrow’s Good Night & Good Luck. Oh, how some declared him to be the heroic martyr who took on the big powerful king. Wait, let’s watch him in action. Let’s pay attention. Oh, how eloquent, passionate and ridden with conviction:

Then, something happened. Again. The hero became an anti-hero. The cheers were replaced with boos. With the old king gone and the new king in, no matter how much worse than the old king, the hero became pro-establishment. Gone was the heroic conviction and actions. Even those who worshipped began to write in disillusionment over their media hero:

“Countdown” had a niche — a profitable one for both the network and its host, who was rumored to have negotiated a $30 million four-year contract in 2008 — and Olbermann apparently saw little need for change.

Meanwhile, his professed commitment to the questioning of authority all-too-evidently did not extend to himself. There were myriad stories about diva-like histrionics in front of — and allegedly directed against — staff. There were instances where his sneering at co-anchors had embarrassing public results.But, more importantly, there was a years-long procession of pundits whose only apparent purpose was to confirm the correctness and brilliance of the host’s every utterance. The spectacle was one in which purportedly respectable journalists seemed to fall over themselves to play courtier to King Smug.

…

As with Gore, this media folk hero is gone as well. Gone, not as in dead. Gone, not as in exile. Gone, not as in jail. He is gone as a multi-millionaire who is living happily ever after with the dollars earned for his services, thanks to you and me, and the rest of the suckers who quickly cheer and clap for phony heroes.

But wait. We need heroes. I don’t care how phony or despicable. Just give us someone we can call hero, and let us cheer and clap and worship. Okay? And they gave us another one. Equally phony. Equally establishment-made: The Great Savior Obama. The God of our Nation’s Needed Change. So convincing; for many. So real and heroic to the gullible majority. They needed a hero. Well, they got one. Check out his performance, and tell me how many poor suckers would have enough brains not to fall for a performance this brilliant:

So what happened to the great savior of the populace? What happened to the change they could believe in? Who really was this establishment-made and establishment-promoted hero?

One of my favorite movies of all time is Leap of Faith starring Steve Martin. Please join me and watch the following clip-one of my favorite scenes:

I know the majority would watch and laugh. They’d laugh at the idea presented in this scene. They’d laugh at the gullibility of some. They’d shake their head at the thought of some people being so gullible in real life. Yet, they are one of the people depicted in this movie. They are among those in the crowd who cheer and clap, and say Hallelujah for phony heroes and saviors sent to them and managed by the establishment from above, just as in this scene. The scene in the above clip is a snap-shot of what we see, over and over and over, with a majority who searches for and seeks heroes.

Just like the ones depicted in this movie, the real majority also believe with a blind and unshakable faith. Because they want to believe. Because they want saviors. Because they want heroes. Again, just like the ones in our clip, no matter how many facts you give them, no matter how many contradictions you show them, no matter how much historical context you provide them with, they are going to hold on to their beliefs. It is hard to let go of phony heroes. It is easier to hold on to phony notions and made-up heroes. It feels good to be suckers. Even if short-lived. And with that, here is another scene, with Steve Martin begging God to tell him why he creates so many suckers:

I will continue to write my commentary and investigative series on our new phony hero Glenn Greenwald. The displeasure of the majority will never stop me. It never did, and it never will. However, as I face them, I will continue to ask God: Why do you make so many suckers?

Sibel Edmonds is the Publisher & Editor of Boiling Frogs Post and the author of the Memoir Classified Woman: The Sibel Edmonds Story. She is the recipient of the 2006 PEN Newman's Own First Amendment Award for her “commitment to preserving the free flow of information in the United States in a time of growing international isolation and increasing government secrecy” Ms. Edmonds has a MA in Public Policy and International Commerce from George Mason University, a BA in Criminal Justice and Psychology from George Washington University.

Way before Obama I’d learned to “follow the money,” so I took one look at who his donors were and I know who he was. I’d also stopped voting before then, since I had no desire to validate a capitalist system that only the wealthiest controlled. But before I understood that the Constitution established an electoral system designed to ensure the popular vote would never be the final say if the powers that be wished to nullify or override it, I was a sucker too. And it took me six full years of trying to find a way to make our votes count, before I figured out that it would take either 100 Constitutional amendments or a whole new Constitution. That’s when I gave up.

Al Gore did say something relevant and important after the Bush v. Gore decision. I forget the exact words, but he said something to the effect that the only way to appeal a Supreme Court decision is armed revolution. It seems that when you take the Divine Right of Kings and divide it up among nine unelected people, it can no longer be recognized as tyranny. Oh, Congress can legislate around a Supreme Court decision, but it is the Supreme Court that gets to interpret that legislation, and if they should happen to interpret it to mean the direct opposite of what it clearly stated and intended, there’s no appeal from that decision either.

Of course Congress could impeach a Supreme Court justice for bad behavior, but in the history of the United States, no sitting official higher than a District Court judge has ever been removed from office through impeachment. If one party were to impeach someone from the other party, it could set off a string of retaliatory impeachments, so it isn’t going to happen.

So why do people worship idols with feet of clay? Darned if I know, Sibel, but it has been this way for a long, long time. Power corrupts, so people who don’t wish to be corrupted, find ways to avoid positions of power. Those who oppose corruption, as you well know, never reach positions of power.

Emma Goldman, the anarchist, was called the most dangerous woman in the United States. Her message was, “If voting could change anything, they’d make it illegal.” Greenwald and Scahill are reformists and statists, not anarchists or revolutionaries. They’ll probably devote a lot of ink to making one of the 2016 candidates appear to be more evil than the other one, as that’s how the two major parties frighten people into voting. (cf. Indispensable Enemies, by the late Walter Karp.) Of course Presidents don’t make policy. Policy is made by policy-making bodies that are controlled by the wealthy elites who fund the multi-billion dollar Presidential races. Without that money neither political party could survive, so both candidates have to be approved by those policy-making bodies and agree to carry out their policies. Follow the money again–candidates to political parties, to big donors, to policy-makin bodies those big donors control, and you end up with the Rockefellers and Rothschilds–and with people calling you a conspiracy theorist.

The only thing that those in power, those who fund them, and those who vote for them lack, is critical thinking. They don’t need it because they can always hire people to do it for them. They really can, because most people aren’t going to sacrifice themselves and their families for their principles, so most people don’t ask too many questions. The fact that you’re still asking questions, Sibel, is a very rare and precious phenomenon. It’s a luxury neither the suckers nor their idols can afford.

Thank you for your thought-filled response. I find myself sharing the same part of the garden with you. I have decided to be very careful with my energy, so I do what makes a difference to me: I tutor teens who have been pushed aside by “the system.” This is so much more gratifying than taking on the corrupt politics of our benighted country. I support Sibel and her work on this site. I pass on the work I find here. I will not vote for the vile psychopaths who pose as “leaders.” Been there, done that. Thanks again for sharing the contents of your mind.

The wars aren’t constitutional, the NSA isn’t constitutional, our fiat money system isn’t constitutional.
“The King is dead, long live the King.”

False-revolution is what we’re witness too. What would further civil disobedience or armed rebellion incur? A further coalescing of power into the hands of the few.

Rule of law is a universal principle. However, when you legalize the counterfeiting of money by government through the Federal Reserve system, then this unlimited source of money trumps any sort of law.

We can’t “throw the baby out with the bathwater”. The baby is the US Constitution. If we throw it out, we engage in what’s called “scratch bargaining”, where we, US citizens, are bargaining from “scratch”. But who are we kidding? Do people think revolution is some Hollywood Propaganda Film like “V For Vendetta” where the masses just simply rise up and the armed guard stands down?

Are we learning nothing from Egypt and the Arab Spring?

Power vacuums never benefit the oppressed; it’s only made to seem that way so we the sheeple go along with it.

The US constitution is an instrument meant to limit federal powers, not enhance them, but for 100 years now the constitution has been under attack by the Federal Reserve System. This is the civil war in America; nothing else.

Keynesianism is the deluded principle behind the welfare to warfare state.

Capitalism and the Constitution are not our enemies. But a fascist element will want to make it seem like it is so.

I think there’s a lot of truth there. however raw Capitalism has no moral check, and can turn just as despotic as any socialist scheme. Slavery was/is a capitalist enterprise, base on pure supply and demand. The moral standards of humanity must come 1st (western JudeoChristian) and in that environ capitalism can thrive and bring a decent life for most. there is no perfect system. But capitalism with a sound moral base, buttressed by a limited gov’t that recognizes human rights and freedoms as paramount is a decent way to live. the best humanly devised so far Imo.

I really thought democrats returning to power was going to end all the problems of the Bush era. I really did! I wasn’t totally deluded over Obama but I was optimistic things would get better. Oh how I wish I’d wisened up sooner. Better late than never I suppose.

When we are infants, truth flows from authority. It HAS to else we should die from starvation and exposure.
In maturity — in an ideal world — authority should flow from truth. The best we can do is share tools and techniques that assist our children to unearth their own nuggets.

I was watching the documentary ‘The West’ recently and was struck by a few revelations. It was pointed out that when the Spanish arrived that they read a document called ‘The Requirement’ to the Native Americans. In brief, “accept our God and our King this moment or die where you stand, and it will be YOUR fault that your wives and your children will be taken as slaves.” It went on to say that the Spaniards employed against the natives “the SAME brutal tactics that they had employed back home in Spain to quell rebellion.” The takeaway? WE are ‘the first conquered peoples’. And our current regime rested power from THOSE guys. The Constitution and The Bill of Rights were our ‘Peace Treaty’ of sorts and, if it ain’t already obvious, the treaty has been broken. A surprise and incredulity to some, no doubt, but I suspect Native Americans understand perfectly and I wouldn’t begrudge them their ‘schadenfreude’ moment. The challenge today is that, though we are spared the ruthless and brutal ‘honesty’ of The Requirement, we face powerful corporate interests that NEVER act in the name of their real agendas. It’s the ‘Age of Advertising’ and ‘Public Relations’ and the reason, I suspect, that sites like BFP exist.

In the same vein of this post, I have an experiment that anyone can try. Just for a week or a month or a year, to see if it makes any difference in the way you express yourself or comprehend what others are saying.

It is to stop using the word “belief” in any of its forms. Treat it as if it did not exist or had no meaning and find other words to replace it. Usually “think” is a more appropriate word, but there may be others that you choose.

For me, the word belief has lost its meaning and I see it as having a profoundly negative effect on our cognition, when we do use it. Although it can be subtle, I’ve come to notice how, when we use it, it lets us off the hook and stops us from considering the processes used to come to conclusions. This goes hand in hand with the need for heroes, who, while sometimes inspiring us, can also allow us to shirk our responsibility for thinking for ourselves.

Try it and see if it helps! I’ve been doing it for about 5 years or more and have found it beneficial. I don’t believe anymore.

I’d have to say that not using the word belief in many situations is probably just a semantics game. Maybe you don’t use the word but the same concept applies. Part of humanity is that we have limited knowledge. We by virtue of our limitations are practically forced to only “believe” somethings are true or false just to get by on the Earth. And there are few people that are willing to live with the ambiguity that a -purely experiential knowledge base with agnosticism in every case- based world view would provide.
Saying ‘I think’ there’s a place call Istanbul, isn’t really very different than saying ‘I believe’ there’s a place called Istanbul. Both could and should call on logic and evidence to come to the conclusion.
Some peoples skewed idea of “belief” somehow divorces logic, reason and evidence from it. But true belief is based on evidence and logic. However the psychological (Psyche = Soul) factor is where the information is ultimately processed through and it’s NOT a simple “rational” process. Brain experiments have shown as much as well as other psychological testing.
Anyway, belief is not a bad/negative word, neither is Soul. And, if your Open to a wider universe, neither is God.

Thanks for the reply. I agree with much of what you said and still am open-minded about all of it. That said, I have found my self-applied filtering out of the word believe has had a positive effect on me. There’s something subtle about it that I bet would produce similar results to the research that shows people becoming more excited when they say “I’m excited!”, even if they don’t think it will happen. I just read about that today; something to do with what to do when a person has a panic attack. The article was suggesting an attempt to spin the anxiety into excitement, instead of attempting to calm down, which is attained through drugs many times. Anyway, I do appreciate your perspective and am satisfied if I have as much as planted a seed in your mind, the next time you have a choice between believe and an alternative.

Everything Sibel says about the psychological need for leaders and saviors is so true. Yet there have to be leaders and organizers for society to function. There is no power without social organization. Without leadership the people are helpless before the organized forces of oligarchy. It takes maturity and skepticism and discernment to distinguish a real leader from a phony, and to exercise such discernment is our responsibility. Sibel Edmonds for Attorney General!

Add to that, the loss of Syria’s chemical weapons presages their overthrow, as did the surrender of them by Gaddhafi, leaving him defenseless against land attack. Syria’s chemical weapons were a necessary bulwark against Israeli invasion, and now against proxy invasions.

So are we now to conclude that Putin and Obama, Lavrov and Kerry, are conspiring in the shadows to do the will of the multinational bankers and their corporations, only pretending opposition?

Madison advised us that “ambition must be made to counteract ambition” in order to prevent concentration of power [Federalist 51]. What to do when all the ambitions collude?

“The US constitution is an instrument meant to limit federal powers, not enhance them…”

You’re kidding, right? The Constitution took power from the people and the States, and gave it to the federal government.

The dictionary definition of democracy is a system where supreme power over government is vested in the hands of the people.

The Constitution vested supreme power in the hands of something they brazenly called a “Supreme Court,” not in the hands of the people.

To say that a document which originally designated Blacks as 3/5 persons, was intended to “…form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings oif Liberty…” is some kind of sick joke. Slavery and inequality are designed to prevent rather than promote any of those things.

I suggest you take a look at my very brief essay, “The Ciounterrevolutionary Constitution:”

The Fed didn’t even exist when the Constitution was adopted by a handful of plutocrats and slaveowners.

Not only doesn’t the Constitution ensure any of the things the Preamble mentions, but it gave the Supreme Court the sole power to interpret the Constitution, and they have stated that the intent of the Framers cannot be found in the Constitution because the Preamble to the Constitution is not a part of the Constitution proper, just an irrelevant preamble to it.

Reality can differ widely from what we’ve been taught to believe. Do your own research before repeating nonsense as if it was fact.

Thank you so much Sibel for this piece as I have been curious about this human need for a while now. I’ve only voted once in a presidential election in 2000, for Ralph Nader. After his complete silence concerning the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq my esteem vanished. Now with the Hillary 2016 campaign rearing its head on facebook, I’ve asked my relatives what they “Like” about her other than her having a vagina. All I’ve received in response is her pro-abortion views. Sick.

Perhaps patience isn’t one of my greatest virtues as I couldn’t wait a full year to read his thoughts on Afghanistan. Perhaps I missed an article or speech he had given earlier to what you have referenced above. Perhaps I was one of the very few who did not believe for one second the lies we were told about 9/11 and was hoping for more outrage and protest from those with a public voice. I do appreciate your time and effort in bringing these articles to my attention and I will look at them.

Perhaps I was one of the very few who did not believe for one second the lies we were told about 9/11 and was hoping for more outrage and protest from those with a public voice.

I’m with you there, truther2. As soon as I saw it. I remember the first public figure who said anything gutsy was the actor Richard Gere. He spoke at the Concert for New York City on October 20, 2001 and got booed for speaking about non-violence/tolerance. While not exactly an attempt to question the government story, it was a pretty courageous attempt to slow down the psyop, whether he thought it was a psyop or not.

Anyway, I can totally empathize with your disappointment at the time. That said, I’m also very glad that Ralph kept running and challenging all those supporters who jumped ship and cowed to the intense fear created by 9/11 and the reborn threat of world war, nuclear annihilation, and the ever-present enemy right around the corner. His campaigns and challenges to the establishment were one of the few bright things in those years.

I feel the same way about learning about Sibel Edmonds. It was a real pick me up. And I feel no shame in calling her a hero for what she has done. Same with the Jersey Girls and Russ Tice, for instance. We should take a lesson from those everyday people who stood in the firing line for us – we are the same everyday people and shouldn’t expect or wait for others to do it for us.

We see more heroic examples in the likes of Andrew, Peter B, DJPJ, James, and Guillermo. Common people taking charge and doing great things.

I’ll add all of the supporters of BFP. Sometimes it’s more difficult than others realize, to send a few dollars, pay attention, spread the word, and help build this vehicle. All heroes!

Happy New Year! Thanks for linking the video. She is very engaging and I enjoyed her response to how leadership should be viewed. I also agree with her views on local community building. However, I am confused with her views on the single payer health plan. Didn’t Lenin say, “Socialized medicine is the keystone to the arch of the socialist state.” Is this what we want?

As Sibel once said, how could we ask such a corrupt government to provide health care? I would answer that these are like oil and water; one displaces the other. And we need to include working outside the system to get there.

But no, collectivism should be part of the balance and isn’t the root of all evil, IMO.

the hero worship bit is no doubt a big part of the problem.
I think maybe 3 other factors come to play as well.
1. the misconception of human nature. unlike the founders who saw human nature as basically flawed, weak or imperfect in the face of temptations. many today seem to have the idea that people are “basically very good”, onward and upward.
2. the pack mentality. “either your with us or against us”.
3. (the hardest one for me ) just mental laziness, or research fatigue. I don’t want to have to question EVERYBODY. gezz. we really want to say, “Isn’t there someone out there that’s already done the work that i can just flip on the television and they’ll tell me the truth? Do i really have to peck around 3 dozen websites/papers/channels go to the court records etc to find the backgrounds and connections of all the players and then question those sources as well and try to make a picture too?”

the Hero worship or Savior syndrome plus the 3 above all have to do with the our psychology, and nothing to do with the reality of the facts. They are hurdles that have to be overcome regardless of the info presented.

I guess a corollary to the traveling in packs idea is the whole “world view” thing. The most stubborn wall i’ve hit while talking to people … who are otherwise rational… is the “world view” thing. “‘they’ would never do that…
therefore your facts are irrelevant.” It’s the same when the savior mantle is laid upon a person. They can do no wrong. Or at least if we HAVE TO admit wrong, there’s no wrong can’t be forgiven or justified or is in comparison to the devils of the opposition light and can be ignored.

frankly those mindsets have to be challenged regularly but frankly IMO only God can break though them. Facts, reason and love can be applied but the magic happens inside the persons own soul. Who know what God has got use as keys unlock the minds/mindsets that are stuck in those states.

For those that are can look at our tendencies to fall into the same traps, I think it’s hard not to become cynical, (we want human saviors too but there are none.) and we might want to COMPLETELY cut off a “bad” scumbag sources. For years i’ve been reminding myself “take the meat and leave the bones”, (sure some are nothing but bones but some aren’t)
In an interview Ron Paul made a great application of this politically, about supporting your “Issues” to hilt and no matter the record of a politicians that happen to back it or not. Get anybody and everyone to sign on. doesn’t mean you married to them, but on this issue you are aligned. But most people like to travel in packs of mass agreement. If your not fully on board you -outta the club-. Red Blue left right center constitutionalists, anarchist, socialist. indy media corporate media, foundation funded, . there’s no perfection.
But trying to be honest about all parts of people’s, group’s and ideas, is the best. let’s put the good the bad and the ugly on the table. Doesn’t have to mean a person is suddenly the devil, but if devilish connections are there they should be exposed.

The used car salesman that tells the truth about a cars may not get the most sales, but that’s who i want to here from.

And I have to add,
Sibel’s and Steve Martin’s question to God is a pretty good one. But I’ve tended to ask the opposite.
“God Why have you made/allowed so many Liars?”
If people told truth, then other’s gullibility wouldn’t be a real issue would it?

I take it our writer has taken some flak in outing GG. If you have facts that raise questions you have to go with seeking the truth despite how uncomfortable it will be for some. It’s when you ignore some point that sticks out as not “fitting in” that you end up kicking yourself later. From the first I thought GG was an odd choice for Snowden (too MSM for the intel) but let it pass with Poitras on the scene. Wasn’t it Naomi Wolfe who took serious flak over her questioning of the entire scenario at the beginning?Wolfe gave me pause to wait and see. However, I to fell for the ES/GG partnership as the revelations began to be rolled out even though they didn’t amount to much more than what we knew what was happening. Further revelations were stunning but not unimaginable. Ms Edmonds open letter to ES will tell us what gives either way, with answers to the questions or not. Gotta love this smart women’s style, humour with a sharp instinct for where the truth may be hidden….

God gave us the ability to choose. Even if you choose not to be a sucker, the path to the condition of being a non-sucker is rocky and perhaps endless. I’ve been hammering away it for decades now, and the main thing I’ve discovered is the dichotomy between what one intellectually knows, and what one allows into the “belief” compartment of the mind. What you know means little until you internalize as your belief. What you believe defines you.

Funny thing, what is so shocking to so many now about the technologies of the Panopticon, I already “knew” long ago. I worked with the technology, even built some custom devices which now are part of the “tool kit”. If anyone in the world knew what was going on, it was me. But I didn’t “believe” it, in the sense I described above. I didn’t internalize that it was inevitably going to become ubiquitous. It was something within the cloistered world of uber-geeks, and though we laughed about a potential future when it might be pervasive, we didn’t actually believe it for a second.

So for me, the process of un-suckerization has mostly been reshaping my understanding of people and the lengths they will go to for the sake of obtaining and retaining power. I already knew what was in the tool kit, I just couldn’t imagine it being widely deployed, because I believed no one in their right mind would even consider slathering it all over a free society.

Every theory should be subject to revision in light of new evidence, but my working theory now is that Snowden is, wittingly or not, part of a psy-ops intended to apply tension in a controlled manner, for the purpose of flushing out persons or groups who may represent a true threat to the (un)balance of power. Other parts of this strategy of psychological pressure are internal checkpoints, high visibility of police militarization, tolerating and even encouraging police hostility to the public, the very obvious display of corruption in the Justice Department complete with heavy-handed Executive Privilege, and of course the marvelous TSA. They can’t be this stupid, so all this must be on display intentionally.

After all these years of combat operations, we now have a substantial number of combat veterans, many with Special Operations experience. Napolitano let it slip that they are considered security threats. They probably get special attention from the NSA. The strategy of increasing pressure may be designed to flush out any of them, particularly an organized group, which might otherwise come out of the blue to challenge state authority in some situation of civil unrest or a Ruby Ridge-type scenario. Consider the panicked reaction the State had to one Christopher Dorner, and imagine the nightmares they must have about a well-trained and equipped group of combat veterans stepping into a confrontation already in progress, with public support behind them.

What the State fears most is being forced to pull back and negotiate due to facts on the ground and public sentiment. That would be a crack in the wall of authority, and cracks spread.

Thank you Sibel, for doubting. This entire situation is very doubtful, and it takes courage to keep asking the hard questions.